The Many Lives of Cadence Lee

  Ghosts are all around us. Look for them, and you will find them.

  -Ruskin Bond

  “The modern world is truly amazing,” Sut whispered in the back of Timothy’s mind. “I can see why Hemere wanted to guide society towards this and I can also see why she didn’t have enough knowledge to do so.”

  Timothy reflected on how surprisingly easy it was to get used to sharing your head with the ancient ghost of a famous [Emperor]. He would have thought that it wouldn’t be the kind of thing a person could go about their day and just be fine with, but here he was! It helped that Sut was rather quiet and seemed content to observe.

  According to the [High Necromancer] that was rather normal for a well-adjusted spirit. He had told Timothy that while he was attaching Sut to Timothy’s soul, “like stapling two pieces of paper together.”

  It had earned him a new Class, one that wasn’t listed on the official Class lists online.

  [Soul Archivist]

  It also came with the Skill, [Strength of the Ancients], which allowed Timothy to channel the Classes and Skills of a soul that he held within him after fulfilling certain conditions. For a brief period of time, Timothy could wield enough power to smash the bus he was riding into junk and then order the police to just let him go. Classes with that kind of strength were usually restricted and regulated, but with Dr. Smith’s contacts in the Hintystan doing so was a breeze. So now Timothy was riding the bus to Dr. Smith’s office at the museum in Huet’Ke’Pah and Sut was riding along with him.

  “It seems odd that these vehicles seem to use very little enchanting,” Sut remarked. “Wouldn’t it be far more efficient to pair science and magic? That was Hemere’s speculation in the notes she left.”

  “Well, she wasn’t wrong,” Timothy replied to Sut in his mind. “Magitech automobiles are far more efficient. A few models require so little fuel and so little maintenance that they are advertised as requiring nothing from the purchaser in terms of upkeep. The problem is that they are very expensive, we still haven't figured out a way to automate even moderately complex enchanting, so detailed magitech is made by hand.”

  Timothy got off the bus and headed inside, nodding to the museum employees as he headed into the back.

  “So strange to see our lives put on display like this. So much of what we thought was wrong, why devote so much to primitives?”

  “Primitive?” Timothy actually chuckled out loud at that one, “Sut, even with our education system most people still end up ignorant and stupid. Ignorance is the natural state of humanity, what makes history worth looking back on is seeing the great minds that managed to push against the weight of humanity enough to advance it.”

  The back rooms where Dr. Smith - and now Timothy - worked had been cleared of most of their samples. In their place were glass cases that held the carefully preserved notes of [Princess] Hemere, including the letter she had written early in her pregnancy, to be read if she did not survive. A letter that made wild, insane seeming claims.

  “To my dear husband,

  Sut, if you are reading this letter I am probably dead. In truth, while I hope to survive this pregnancy I very much worry that I will not. The [Priests] can help, but they lack the skill and power to save lives in dire circumstances unless one of the Gods reaches down through them for a miracle. I have not yet even begun to try and create a medical system yet, and so I fear that my survival will depend on me.

  What will happen, will happen, and since you are reading this now, it already has.

  I had not expected to come to care for you like I have. An arranged marriage for political purposes to a man with another wife - if I had been told that I would fall in love, and believe I was loved in turn, I would not have believed it. I had imagined our relationship far more like a business transaction and I want to thank you for making it anything but.

  Which is why I have to apologize, because I have kept a secret about myself from you.

  I have thought for hours about if and how I should tell you; I have tried to just walk up to you and tell you, but lost my nerve every time. Even now, this is my last chance and I will never face your questions over it, but I still hesitate to write it down. As much as I wouldn’t have believed that I would come to love you in our marriage, I can’t imagine you taking my word on this, but I still want to try and tell you.

  The truth is that I am, well I guess you would call me immortal. This won’t be the first time I’ve died just as this wasn’t the first life I lived. This is my third life and I have no idea how many more lives are ahead of me. Our world - your world - is not the only one, but one of many. I cannot return to this world once I die, but I will be reborn into another world to live another life.

  In my very first life I lived in a world without magic or monsters; without a system or Classes or Skills. I lived in a world of science and technology, where the mind of humanity had accomplished feats that our [Mages] and [Priests] couldn’t even imagine. I wish that when I lived there I had paid more attention to what was around me, but it was only afterwards that I realized just how ignorant I truly was.

  I have left you my notes. They contain everything I can remember - anything that I thought might help. I hope that it does.

  I want you to know that I will remember this life - and you - always.

  With love for you and our child,

  Hemere

  The rest of her notes though… They read like you would expect if you had grabbed a random person off the street and thrown them back in time. Dr. Smith and Timothy had poured over the notes and compared them to various developments in history and Timothy started to wonder, how far would this world be if they hadn’t been given these notes? By themselves, they were nothing special, but they were like giving hints to a puzzle.

  Would they have built the Lunar City and the Lunar Warp Gate yet? Or have developed clean magitech yet? Maybe, maybe not, but the world was undoubtedly changed by these words. But all of that was just the historical perspective, and that letter opened up a whole lot more possibilities than just knowledge of the past.

  It hinted at an infinite future potential.

  Timothy, however, was not sure if that potential was something they could seize. The team was made up of [Archaeologists], [Historians], and [Anthropologists] - some of which also happened to be [Necromancers] - but they weren’t [Systemologists] or [Physicists]. Chasing a trail past the border of this world - how were they qualified to even attempt it?

  Dr. Smith believed that this was a necessary step to unravel the greatest mystery of all: the origin of the system itself. She wanted to understand the history of the system itself and she had talked Timothy into accepting Sut into his soul for that purpose.

  “Ah, Timothy.” Dr. Smith greeted him as he walked in but hardly looked up from the documents she was pouring over, “Good morning! How are you and his highness fairing today?”

  “I am well enough,” Sut said to Timothy, who repeated it to the Doctor. As for himself…

  “I don’t have a lot of hope in this,” Timothy replied. “What makes you think this goal is even possible?”

  Dr. Smith set her documents down and looked at Timothy as she steepled her hands. Her eyes were bright and focused and Timothy felt uncomfortable as they scrutinized him, it almost felt like she was peeling him back, layer by layer.

  “Timothy, what do you think the system is?”

  Timothy blinked at the question, but answered readily enough, “No one knows, but the current best theory was that it was a semi-conscious akasha that connected mana subunits to quantum particles. Frankly, as far as near as I can tell, it is basically all guesswork.”

  “Hemere believed that the system was responsible for the existence of mana and magic, but she wasn’t very sure.” Sut remarked, and that was another theory admittedly, but it wasn’t the most accepted one.

  “A working description, I suppose that it is good enough for the purpose of this conversation.” Dr. Smith leaned back in her chair, although her eyes never left Timothy. “So let me pose a question to you: with historical related Classes like ours, could we change the past of the akasha?”

  “I suppose?” Timothy paused to think, “The akasha can be changed, Classes have come into and gone out of existence as society has evolved. However, I am not really sure how that would matter. Anything that is ‘current’ would be unchangeable unless we could change everyone’s opinions as well. All we would be able to do is change things in the past - a past we can’t reach or effect.”

  “Can’t we though?” She rebutted with a smile, “Chronomancy is a magical School, what is stopping us from reaching the past?”

  “You know as well as I do that the Need Paradox makes time travel all but useless,” Timothy answered. “If you go back in time to change something and succeed, the change will mean that you don’t have to go back in time to change it which will mean that you won’t change it, and the whole timeline repairs itself effectively instantly.”

  “True, time travel to the past is effectively impossible,” Dr. Smith smiled suddenly. “However, we don’t need to go to the past to reach it. The Need Paradox doesn’t apply to personal time.”

  “That just results in the person who tries disintegrating.” Timothy noted, “The inherent stability issues of time travel due to the users molecules being in the wrong location are exacerbated and they just turn to dust.”

  “Yes, if we send molecules back in time.”

  “Ah, I see. She wants to send her own akasha back in time while using her abilities in the present to alter it. That is genius.” Sut sounded impressed, but Timothy still doubted it would work.

  “So, what, you are trying to turn yourself into a Primordial? Has this become a cult now? The akasha would reject it, just as it has rejected every attempt to take control of it humanity has ever attempted.” Timothy replied, for indeed history was full of attempts to gain control of the system. It never worked.

  “It never worked before because everything was within the akasha,” Dr. Karen Smith’s smile widened. “There was nothing and nowhere that could avoid the touch of the akasha, but now…”

  “Dr. Smith, let me speak frankly,” Timothy sighed. “Everything you have just said is built on hypothesis and vague ideas. It is possible that the system isn’t an akasha at all, or that it can’t be moved through time, or that it won’t cause a paradox and disintegrate you, or that everything you do works and you find out that the system is limited and you aren’t able to do more than - I don’t know - change your class or something! This is not good science and it has almost nothing to do with history!”

  “And yet, I will be going through with it.” Dr. Karen Smith’s smile turned manic, and Timothy decided that maybe it was best not to argue any more. He was starting to realize that there was more to his hero than he had ever believed.

*Six Months Later at an Island Ritual Site*

  Timothy shivered as the blizzard intensified. Why the ritual had to take place on an island near the north pole, he had no idea. Over the past six months he had watched the professional and impressive workforce of one of the most famous scholars in the modern age had evolved into something resembling a doomsday cult. The hundreds of robed individuals chanting in unison didn’t help deny the comparison.

  “Well, we will know soon whether or not she is a genius or a madwoman.” Sut mused, not entirely concerned by what he was seeing. Of course he wasn’t concerned, Timothy though. He had already died so what did he have to lose now!?

  Smith stood at the center of a gigantic ritual circle, drawn in the blood of dragons and guided by several [Chronomancers] and [Systemologists]. Timothy was watching the power gather; if he payed attention he could almost see the folds in the mana where time was twisted.

  “Here we go.” Sut said with anticipation as the ritual reached its crescendo.

  It exploded, and worse than Timothy had ever thought that it could. The mana rushed outwards and struck Timothy in a sudden blast. A bright white light blinded him for a moment, and when he opened his eyes instead of the wintery northern island, he saw a pleasant grassland as far as the eye could see.

  [Ding! You have earned the Achievement “Otherworldly Traveler!”]

  “What the fuck!?”